Republicans Hold Flaming Gun To California’s Head
There is no bottom. This is who they are.
California is still burning. Nightmarish wildfires are threatening life and property across Los Angeles and Ventura counties, which contain more U.S. citizens than about 40 states. At least 24 people are dead and countless more have lost everything they’ve built over the years.
Over the next few days, winds could reach as high as 70 miles per hour, sparking old and new fires. According to my friends in the area, at least 92,000 people remain evacuated and another 89,000 are under evacuation orders.
So, obviously, Republicans consider this is the ideal time to shake down California.
We’re not even in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster. The crisis is ongoing. Desperate people want to know that their government will support them in their greatest time of need, and Republicans are already insisting that no such support will come without very lengthy strings attached. That’s mostly a direct quote from Sen. John Barrasso, who told Face the Nation host Martha Brennan, “I expect there will be strings attached to money that is ultimately approved.”
The strings seemingly involve ceding local control to the GOP-dominated federal government.
Sen. Ron Johnson told Newsmax, “I certainly wouldn’t vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they’re gonna be handling these things in the future.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville agreed: “They don't deserve anything to be honest with you unless they show us they’re gonna make some changes.”
During an appearance on Fox News Business, Rep. Ronny Jackson said federal aid “is gonna have to be in conjunction with some reforms that California hasn’t been willing to make on the way they regulate their water and things of that nature ... they wasted their taxpayer dollars on all kinds of crazy woke agenda items.”
That’s a popular Republican lie about the wildfires. They can continue to ignore the very real climate crisis while blaming this catastrophe on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at the Los Angeles Fire Department. It’s true that human error has played a role in this disaster, but Los Angeles isn’t on fire because the LAFD has women in charge, as Jesse Watters grossly suggested.
(Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley has already openly blamed Bass for the department’s struggles, so it’s not as if women are part of some DEI sorority that won’t criticize each other.)
Rep. Zach Nunn told Maria Bartiromo at Fox News, “We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy ... those [governors] need to change their tune.”
California contributes a significant amount of money to the federal budget. It’s depressing to even have to make this point, because we shouldn’t discuss our fellow citizens in such transactional terms. Yet, this is the politics that Donald Trump has popularized. As of this writing, he’s not yet called Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass or Governor Gavin Newsom to offer his unqualified support as the next president. Instead, he’s just blamed them for everything that’s gone wrong.
Obviously, this is a drastic departure from how Democrats behave in similar situations, probably because they possess human souls. After Hurricane Helene hit, President Joe Biden immediately reached out to governors in affected states, without consideration of their political party. Of course, MAGA still lied and claimed he slept through the whole thing.
Vice President Kamala Harris even reached out to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who didn’t take her call because he’s a very busy and important jerk.
Biden and congressional Democrats have also never conditioned federal disaster aid to Florida, Texas, North Carolina, or Kentucky on major changes in governance. They would never stoop to such blatant policy extortion.
When Hurricane Idalia struck Florida in 2023, Biden said, “I don't think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore. Just look around. Historic floods. I mean, historic floods. More intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage.”
Republicans might have accused Biden of “politicizing” the disaster by mentioning its obvious cause, but he never directly attacked DeSantis. He didn’t post all-caps screeds on social media suggesting Florida was unprepared for the storm because DeSantis had spent too much time fighting Mickey Mouse or running for president
Instead, while touring the damage, Biden insisted that he’d do everything in his power to help struggling Americans, no matter where they lived or how they voted.
“We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “The federal government, we’re here to help.”
Sen. Shevrin Jones Thinks Florida's Ready To Confront Climate Change, That Means Electing Democrats
Lies spread faster than wildfire
Former senator from California Barbara Boxer lamented on social media, “I have never ever heard a President launch a political attack instead of standing with first responders and Americans battling a devastating disaster until Trump. This is not normal; it is a terrible role model for our children and must be called out.”
Boxer is appealing to longstanding norms and basic human decency, which seemingly matter to Americans far less than the price of eggs. What’s far worse than the timing of the attacks is the fact that they’re all a bunch of lies. Once the danger is over, the fires are out, and people are starting the long process of recovery, it still won’t be an appropriate time to suggest that Los Angeles burned because lesbians run the fire department.
Rep. Andrew Clyde called FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell a “DEI hire,” which has become a reflexive GOP slur. Republicans say “DEI hire” more often than a David Mamet character says “fuck.”
On Fox News Sunday, Vice President-elect JD Vance, a singularly graceless liar, said, “Some of these reservoirs have been dry for 15, 20 years. The fire hydrants are being reported as going dry while the firefighters are trying to put out the fires. There was a serious lack of competent governance in California. It’s part of the reason why these fires have gotten so bad.”
Vance freely spreads lies because he’s fairly confident they’ll remain unchecked.
Democrats can’t just appeal to Republicans’ non-existent better natures. This is how you end up watching in horror as California becomes a battleground state. That’s not hyperbole. Republicans will do everything in their power to keep people impacted by the wildfires desperate and angry. We must immediately counter MAGA lies before an anti-Democratic narrative cements.
Newsom has set up a website that corrects MAGA misinformation about the wildfire response. At least he’s trying, although this is like U.S. soldiers using muskets against Nazis.
Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose job Democrats probably regret saving, announced that he supports placing conditions on federal aid to California. If Republicans treat California like 3/5ths of a state, Democrats should finally remove the white gloves and fight back. No more somber statements about how disappointed they are in their Republican colleagues. No, this is who they are, and it’s 5/5ths loathsome.
Rachel Campos-Duffy, on whatever Fox News program employs her, demonstrated the GOP’s sociopathic nature when she claimed that Democrats will try to blame Trump and Elon Musk for the wildfire backlash.
“It’s not going to work this time,” she said, “because their friends who amplify their liberal deflection messages just had their houses burn down.”
Republicans see a natural disaster as a political opportunity. They seek to divide Americans because their business model suffers whenever people come together in shared humanity.
And this is all before the New Guy takes over. You can bet with the next crisis, federal aid will be withheld unless (1) the local officials publicly kiss the right ass, and (2) there's some other corrupt quid pro quo. There's literally no disincentive for him running things this way, we already showed him there's no consequences. Welcome to our new horror.
Of course, while this "strings attached" stuff is gross, I do think it's worth discussing how the area should be rebuilt differently when this is over. Building expensive real estate in disaster-prone areas that private insurance cannot fully cover is just not sustainable, and not only will have a huge dollar cost but endangers lives (as we see here). California has an acute housing crisis so rebuilding should be dense but also with an eye to fire protection--firebreaks to contain future fires (when Tokyo, which we grossly firebombed during the war, rebuilt later they did exactly this and now have dense, walkable development that is much more fire-proof than before) and with more fire-retardant materials and vegetation. But for dealing with this current disaster, the immediate goal should be saving lives and reducing destruction. And that will go right out the window after January 20.
"We are trying to correct misinformation on this website we set up" would be an appropriate response if the misinformation was just coming from unknown private actors. But this shit is coming from the incoming POTUS and sitting GOP legislators! Failing to call them out by name and call them lying scumbags just makes it seem like gosh shucks this is an honest disagreement over whether the whole thing was engineered by radical DEI Woketivists using mind control drugs to turn us all gay, great minds may disagree on it.